Carancas

Desaguadero, Peru

(H4) chondrite

Fell
September 15, 2007 at ~11:45 AM.

At ~11:45
am on September the 15th, 2007 a massive fireball entered the
atmosphere over Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. The fireball was larger
and brighter than the sun, and rapidly moved over the lake on the
Bolivian side, and along the border with Peru. It crossed over the
town of Desaguadero which straddles both countries, and broke many
windows as it passed overhead at what must have been supersonic speed! Within a couple of
seconds, the meteorite impacted in the village of Carancas, Peru,
less than 4 kilometers from Bolivia. When the meteorite impacted the
soft, wet soil, it created a large crater measuring over 13.8 meters
in diameter and 3 meters deep. Debris was ejected in all directions up
to 150 meters away.

Witnesses
describe a massive ball of fire which slammed into the ground,
creating a mushroom cloud of smoke, steam and dust, and shook the
ground like an earthquake. Many windows were broken in the village
of Carancas as well. People who arrived at the fall site within
minutes of the impact report that the crater rapidly filled with
water, which was boiling, and erupting nauseous steam that smelled
overwhelmingly of sulfur. Many people reportedly were sickened by
the gasses, and media reports of hundreds sickened were vastly
exaggerated. The fear created by such a traumatic even likely caused
mass hysteria and the fear of the object almost certainly played a
part in the reports of illnesses.

This
meteorite fall will be one of the most studied and important
meteorite falls in the last few decades, and I am distributing
pieces to laboratories all over the world.

Reconstructed trajectory of Carancas meteorite plotted on Google
Earth view from original field work by L. E. Jackson, Jr., Geological
Survey of Canada.

Used with permission of Mr. Jackson

In this map, you can see
that the meteorite entered the atmosphere over Lake Titicaca in
Bolivia heading from the northeast to the southwest. The meteorite
crossed over the border of Peru and impacted in the village of Carancas in
Peru. The meteorite crater is at an elevation of over
3,800 meters! I would like to thank Lionel Jackson for the work in
creating this map to illustrate the Carancas meteorite fall.

This is a photo of the Carancas meteorite smoke
trail, taken by a 16 year old boy who witnessed the fall, then ran
and got hit disposable camera to take some photos. I have darkened
the color in this print to better show the corkscrew shape of the
smoke trail. This photo was taken some 5-7 minutes after the fall,
so it is likely that upper-level winds had already affected the path
of the smoke-trail. The negatives of the photo were already highly
damaged by poor handling and dust, so it is not the best photo, but
still very important, as I think there are less than 10 photos of
meteorite smoke-trails in existence.

This photo shows myself at the Carancas meteorite
crater, it is much larger than it looks. It is more than 13.8 meters
across!

The crater immediately filled with water as it
excavated a hole well below the level of the water table.

Adventure continues on next page.

Click here to continue to the next
Carancas page,with more
photos and my personal expedition story.

All photos are property of Michael
Farmer and MAY NOT be used or copied or used without prior permission
with exception of the Google Earth meteorite trajectory map on page one.
This belongs to Lionel Jackson, Geological Survey of Canada.